[mythtvnz] naive questions about Satellite and Australia channels

[Jason Haar]

Hi there

I still haven't made the jump to digital (we're not  big TV watchers -
but I'm definitely geeky enough to have required Mythtv for years to
watch all the PAL TV we've ever wanted!). So I'm still tossing up
between DVB-S and DVB-T. We only have a 32inch TV and really don't see
the point in going larger - so the attraction of HD content over DVB-T
is near-zero.

I've heard that NZ (I'm in Chch if that matters) can pick up some
Australian channels over Satellite, so my questions are:

1. does the Satellite dish need to be pointed in a particular
"different" direction than it would for "Freeview NZ" satellite?
2. I "google-saw" some old posts about issues with polarity (polarity!!
why do we even need to know about such things!!!) screwing up recording
NZ and Australian shows. It was implied that was a red-herring and a
single tuner should automagically know what to do with each channel - so
I just wanted to check if that was the case
4. The Big One: What's the best satellite USB tuners? I'm wanting a new
smaller backend server and being able to throw out the PCI card and go
USB tuner would help a lot. But I don't know how reliable USB tuners
are? Once they're plugged in, are they rock solid or do they flake out
on occasion? Also, can you record more than one show simultaneously on
them (like PCI), or are they a one-show-at-a-time kind of thang


Thanks for any help.

Jason